(Hunter)

We constantly remind ourselves that the weather changes rapidly and drastically in Southeast Alaska. "Keep a weather eye out" is a common refrain. Since moving onto the homestead we've lived far closer to the weather than ever before. Our daily routines involve spending much of our time outdoors. Our electricity comes from the wind and sun. Even so, occasionally we are still surprised at the rapid changes around us.

A few days ago we got a dumping of snow. It was extremely dry powder, about two feet of it. We awoke to perfect ice cream snow, and planned to make some for dinner. After hearing the local forecast call for rain the next day, we decided to play it safe, and moved the ice cream plan to lunch dessert. We also mobilized to prepare for the coming thaw. The snow, falling in high wind, had literally flocked everything around the cabin, including every exposed surface in the firewood shelter. We couldn't remove it all, but if we gave the pile a good sweeping, we could reduce the moisture in there when the thaw came. We all set to work, planning to take care of that chore, then make lunch, then make ice cream.

When we stepped outside, the wind was strong from the north. As we worked, I kept an eye on the wind generator. Before long it faltered, then stalled, then began swinging crazily. Suddenly it switched to the south. Apprentice was standing on the veranda looking out at the water, and called to me.

"The wind generator's acting crazy!" she called. "It's facing south, but the waves are from the north!" The wind had veered so quickly that a north swell continued for a while after. I called her back to her job, sifting snow out of our buckets of "shower wood," pieces small enough to use in the wood-fired water heater. We worked as fast as we could as the wind strengthened from the south. Finally, I told Apprentice to cut her job short and run in to make the ice cream mixture. I realized that if we wanted snow ice cream, we'd need to make it immediately, or lose the light snow.

About five minutes after she went inside, I scooped up a handful of snow. In less than a half hour our perfectly dry powder had turned to heavy, wet "packing" snow. I stepped inside, where I found Apprentice looking in the wrong recipe box for the the ice cream card. That was lucky—because of that short delay, I was able to catch her and cancel the ice cream before she opened the milk can. Within that short time the temperature had changed enough to degrade all of that snow!

Soon we were driven inside as large clumps of heavy, slushy snow fell off the trees around the cabin, some of them around 100 feet high. We were bombarded for the rest of the day as the thaw continued, and rain developed.

As you can imagine, we spend a fair amount of each day listening to the weather band. We keep a weather radio handy in the "weather station," a letter holder that hangs next to my place at the table, which includes tide books, a wind gauge, weather reference sheets, and sunrise/sunset tables. The wind up/solar radio in the outhouse has a weather band feature as well. It's usually tuned to the weather band rather than the local radio station. They give the weather as well, but we find that our comprehension is less when listening to the disk jockeys. They get bored reading the straight report, so they throw in pleasantries, jokes, personal observations—all of which distract from the information we need. We often find ourselves tuning them out, and missing the information we'd been listening for. On the weather band, the "announcer" is a computer-generated voice. It's not perfect, but it has no personality, so it's utterly consistent.

The computer's imperfections are amusing. They apparently haven't found a way to get the program to recognize phone numbers, so the information numbers they list are expressed as real numbers: 555-1212 becomes "five hundred fifty-five, one thousand two hundred and twelve." Also, the phrase "mix of sun and cloud" becomes garbled as "sun" is assumed by the program to be an abbreviation of Sunday. So, when the radio announces high winds and "a mixture of Sunday and cloud," we joke that it's going to blow us into next week.

We understand that the science of weather prediction is constantly improving, and that significant advances have been made recently. Perhaps so, but they have yet to master predicting winds in Alaska's Lynn Canal. The marine forecast is our primary interest, as it lists wind speeds for our area, and helps us decide how to manage our wind generators. All we really get from it is a general idea of what might happen. For instance, a few days ago the forecast called for a 40-knot gale starting early that morning. There may have been a gale in some section of the fjord, but on our property we had dead calm! We've learned to interpret the predictions to a certain extent: 15 knots or less generally means no wind at all, although occasionally it means 25 knots. Twenty knots means there may be light wind, or 25 knots. Twenty-five knots means definite winds of power-generating strength, but possibly as much as 30 knots. After that level, we tend to expect higher than called-for winds as a general rule. Still, there are surprises like the other day. The wind eventually blew to 40 knots, but not until very late in the day. The forecast, which is usually updated several times throughout the day, never did update from the original 4:00 a.m. prediction of high winds.

As for precipitation, we've learned to adjust the forecast for the nearest town to our needs. Our microclimate is different from any that are listed in the forecast. As a general rule we get more wind, less precipitation, and warmer temperatures. The little hollow in which our cabin was built has the best microclimate on our property. We're often surprised by deep snow when we hike up the trail, while the ground around the cabin is bare. However, these rules of thumb can be completely wrong sometimes.

The main lesson we've learned from comparing forecasts to actual conditions is that in general, the weather develops sooner than they predict. Often today's weather is predicted in tomorrow's forecast.

It keeps us on our toes, and tuned to the weather band, with an eye on the sky. In that position, it's sometimes hard to get any work done.